From MTV to the historic Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Yewande’s socially charged music has taken center stage with musical icons from the Black Eyed Peas to Maroon 5, but it is her work as an award-winning lecturer, social activist and honorary U. S. Cultural Ambassador that has become her greatest achievement. Today, this 2018 African Women in Leadership “Woman of Worth” and 2017 President Barack Obama” Lifetime Achievement Award” Honoree is recognized as an international expert in strategic diversity leadership, multidisciplinary education, social responsibility and youth development.
With 14 years as a social impact leader, Ms. Austin’s award-winning programs teach clients competence skills that foster diversity and inclusion, leadership and social responsibility from the classroom to the boardroom. Under her capacity building consultancy, the Global Institute for Diversity and Change, she has been credited with transforming over 3,000 academic institutions, government agencies and non-profit organizations through evidence-based strategies. Through a combination of education, sustainable skill development and the arts, her humanitarian organization, the Change Rocks Foundation, has taught over 250,000 vulnerable youth, advocates and educators in 18 countries from North and Latin America to Africa and Europe how to create sustainable solutions that reduce poverty and injustice.
Ms. Austin’s 2015 TED talk (“Running Into the Dark”) about social activism, inspired her to executive produce a documentary, “Amazing Grace: Freedom’s Song” (Winter 2018), that will lift the veil on the $99 billion human trafficking industry. Nominated as a CNN Hero for her global humanitarian efforts in 2017, 2014 and 2013, Yewande is currently building Alheri Village – a sustainable resettlement community for some of the nearly 2 million survivors displaced by conflict with Boko Haram terrorists in Abuja, Nigeria (www.gofundme.com/alherivillage). It is this extraordinary mission that is inspiring a legion of everyday heroes to change the world.
For more information: www.globalinstituteforchange.com and www.changerocksfoundation.com
